


Schisms

by TheCrazyFriend



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2020-10-11 22:23:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20553641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCrazyFriend/pseuds/TheCrazyFriend
Summary: Chloe had a life. She had a family, friends and had never experienced joy like itButWhat would the Price of her happiness be?





	1. A mere prologue

“No... No, shit. _Shit_” a feminine voice rang out amongst nowhere. A huge white expanse of nothingness spread out as far as the eye could see. The middle of nowhere, the world between worlds, a dimension between life and death itself  
“What's wrong?” another feminine voice replied, sounding utterly terrified. “What's going on, what's happening?” She didn't have a clue where she was or even when she was. It could have been mere seconds between her last definite memory, a memory of red and blue, of loud noises, whimpering and screaming, and where she had found herself or it could have been decades, centuries or millennia despite common sense telling her that the latter was impossible and the second was certainly unlikely. The suffering she had felt since the last event she was certain she remembered felt partially like a dream, a psychotic delusion resulting from the incredible traumas of what had happened. Her long hair had faded to a slight silver with no trace of the original color left, too long with a complete lack of sunlight had caused a multitude of problems for the other woman, her formerly good health was mostly gone and was suffering from a multitude of illnesses that resulted from her time locked in a psychiatric hospital. She barely even remembered what the sky liked like. Freed from her uncooperative body the woman was pacing backward and forward, anxious energy making it impossible to stay still, along with the relief that she could finally move her body of her own accord, the brain-body link of her physical body had been severed some time ago by a surgical procedure that had been administered as a last resort

“It's not working...” A blonde was holding out her hand and attempting to concentrate with a scowl of distaste set firmly on her otherwise beautiful features, the beautiful blonde was pointedly attempting to ignore the silver-haired woman  
“What's not working?” the second voice squeaked timidly. She didn't remember much of the past however long it had been, a few vague flashes here and there were all she had left. She pulled on the hem of her hospital gown, wherever she was had decided that she wouldn't be totally freed from reminders of where she was supposed to be though she didn’t actually remember a whole lot of where she was supposed to be. The hospital gown had come simultaneously as a surprise and a worry.  
“I can't send you back...” The blonde scowled, reluctantly acknowledging the other young woman. “I don't get it. I sacrificed myself to ensure the safety of my best friend. She's the most important person in my world, part of that deal was that you suffer for your mistake” _Not just in this reality but every reality where you betrayed her_  
“You... _You_ made me go through all that?” the second voice replied, a hint of anger lacing itself through her tone.  
“Yes. You made a terrible mistake and someone who didn't deserve it had to pay the ultimate Price!” the blonde shot back, loathing along with white-hot rage spreading throughout her words  
“You're such a bitch!”  
“I know” The blonde nodded sagely

The other young woman scowled angrily which looked incredibly odd on her as if her face hadn't been designed for scowling. “Do you have _ANY_ idea what I've been going through?!” her voice increased and decreased in pitch and volume as she spoke, the quiet and docile young women had become overcome by fury for what had been done to her. “Fuck you! Do you have _any_ idea what it’s like to be trapped in your body, aware of what's going on but unable to communicate?! With people so convinced that you can't even wipe your own fucking ass!?” It had been one of the glimpses she had managed to retain, her being sat in a chair day in, day out with nothing to do but stare absently at the wall. Had she gotten some stimulation it may have helped keep her somewhat cognizant but she was a nice quiet docile patient so had been ignored for the most part. She also knew she hadn’t ever had visitors other than the doctors  
“Could you wipe your ass?” the blonde snapped back, tormenting the other woman turned out to be quite good fun and knowing the answer meant the blonde had to hold in her laughter so that the other wouldn't realize she already knew the answer  
“Not the point” the other woman grumbled. _Would've liked to have been given the chance to show I could instead of being mollycoddled though_.  
“Sucks to be you” the blonde grinned a grin that looked more like a predatory leer, as if she knew what the other woman was thinking. _Oh, how I enjoyed fucking with you and your life as you fucked with other people's lives and their fates. Whenever you thought it was over and started to relax I just had to wave a proverbial finger and it shattered your life again. Tell me how it felt watching her die, tell me how it felt not being able to save any of them. I loved those storms_. A happy smile began to make its way onto the blonde's face as she reminisced about the storms. _Out of Storm Azazel, Storm Kushiel and Storm Samael, Storm Kushiel was my favorite, the way it gouged through what was left of everything you loved was just beautiful. Shame about Seattle though_. The blonde remembered watching the biggest of the three storms gouge a two-mile-wide scar through Seattle and recalled with regret that the woman in front of her wasn’t likely to remember what had happened, the surgery had done a number on various aspects of her consciousness including memory loss and flattened affect  
“Fuck you.” The other woman replied coldly with icy hatred being poured into every single word. _You were always supposed to be so cool. Never meet your heros, I guess?_  
“Ugh. No way. I have standards and they're hella far above _you_” the blonde looked at the other girl with absolute disgust and loathing. _They were freed early anyway, freed from a dying... Wait..._ The blonde’s head snapped up, she had suddenly realized. “That's it... That's what's wrong. Between her death and you being removed from the timeline, its death was hastened...” the blonde smiled. “So now I have a choice it seems, integrate you into this reality or leave you here”  
_Huh? Don't quite understand that._ Despite herself, the other woman couldn't help it; _Please integrate me, please integrate me, Rachel, please_  
The blonde lifted her hand and the other woman felt herself zooming away from where she had been. “Do kindly have an awful tortured existence” The blonde woman called after the other as she shot away at high speed, it sounded like she was still stood right next to her but that would have been impossible since she was still speeding away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone... I'm not going to do a list of fics that inspired this story yet cos I don't want to spoil the surprise.
> 
> You know the drill, comment or kudos yada yada


	2. Normal life

Chloe Price woke up with a gasp, the blue-haired girl had been getting nightmares almost every night for two weeks and that night was no exception. “Darn it” the girl tried to calm her ragged breathing by remembering it was her very first day at Blackwell that she had been awarded a place at despite not being the richest in town, nowhere near. The Price family were by no means struggling like the Ambers were but the Prescotts were and always had been top dogs in Arcadia Bay even if, with careful investments, the Price family could overtake them in as little as ten years. If asked, the Price family would admit they had no idea how they had gotten the money they were rolling in but they had a sneaking suspicion. When Chloe had been five, a girl her age had saved her from being hit by a car, a girl who had been seen leaning against the wall without parental supervision and a girl who Chloe had held as she died, they had gotten home to find Chloe's savings account absolutely loaded with a small anonymous note; 'I'm sorry’  
The blunette remembered almost nothing of the disastrous life-changing event, she had been too young to do so. The only thing she remembered was the girl’s rather melodious voice and what she had said with her last breath. “Be successful. Make something of yourself, C”  
That had always confused Chloe. Had she known that girl? The girl had had pink hair with blue tips and no name, the blue had resonated with Chloe's subconscious and was the reason why she had died her hair that very same blue.  
“Chloe!! Your friends will be here in a moment, are you up yet?” a soothing male voice called through the doorway  
“Okay!!” the girl called back, _seventh grade at a private academy for the arts and sciences? Yes, please!_ Chloe jumped up out of bed and rushed into the shower.

“Chloe! You're gonna make us late, _again_ and on our _first day_ too!” A stem tone came from the other side of the door ten minutes later. Her money which her parents had taken responsibility for lest Chloe spend the whole lot on candy and ice cream and later video games and science shit had given Chloe better social standing than she could've ever hoped for, her parents had taken a chunk of Chloe's money to invest and used the interest from that to live by along with the money they made from their jobs and the girl stood at the door was none other than the prim and proper Victoria Chase who had known the punk since she was an innocent dorky little girl  
“Whatever, Vic. Are Steph and Taylor with you yet?” Chloe replied enthusiastically as she unlocked the bathroom  
“They're downstairs, Chloe” the blonde blushed as Chloe emerged, dressed in her usual getup. Damp blue and pink hair spiked up and looking impressive, an appropriate band tee with a leather jacket her parents had purchased for her birthday, artistically distressed jeans and large combat boots completed her outfit. If one was to look at Chloe Price or even her lifestyle, they wouldn't say that the girl was in any way well off, Chloe's parents had taught the girl well  
“How do I look, Vicky?”  
“Appropriately trashy, Price” Victoria replied with playful snark

Chloe nodded a grateful smirk and gestured downstairs. “Yo!!” she called out to her small group of friends  
“Chloe, that look never gets old!” Steph hurried forward and wrapped her arms around the other girl  
“Don’t leave me out!” Taylor exclaimed and joined the hug

Only Victoria stayed back, since she had heard of the events that occurred just after Chloe's fifth birthday the pixie blonde had been doing some research around it. She had discovered that the girl who had been hit, whose name had been concealed to protect her identity, had died soon after impact and while the man who had hit her, one Ryan Caulfield had eventually been cleared of all charges, he had initially been arrested for murder due to mysterious circumstances involving his own daughter who also hadn't been named. The pixie blonde didn't know how much the blunette knew but was nervous to bring it up, in case it triggered a flashback or a panic attack that would result in the blunette's recently stabilized mental health going haywire again. Chloe noticed and narrowed her eyes at the pixie blonde who moved forward and happily engaged the blunette and others in a hug, knowing it would most likely be a tough day

*****

A teen girl sat watching the scene from afar with a perfectly tortured expression on her face, tears streaming down her face. Someone reached into the girl’s field of vision and jabbed her neck with a needle. The teen collapsed almost immediately, surrendering to the potent mix of sedatives, knowing that she couldn't keep her projection ability going after being sedated, it had taken them quite a while to figure out how to sedate her but in the end they achieved their goal


	3. The future is bright

Max woke up to find herself in a presumably small room since she felt a faint air of claustrophobia. Her last memory had been that of watching a blunette and her friends, none of whom she recognized, get ready for school. Before that she remembered an expanse of nothing, someone who tormented her over an inability to use the bathroom without help and seemed stressed out about something and before that, she merely remembered a disembodied voice filled with nothing other than contempt and malice echoing around her head as she gazed into photograph after photograph but nothing else. _Where am I?_ She lifted her wrists to make sure they were free, a half-remembered sensation of being restrained came back to her despite her not remembering all that much. Her hands hit the walls of the room she was in, it was barely big enough to fit a thin cot in and it was pitch black. _That voice... Said they had to integrate me into this timeline_. Slowly, the brunette hipster attempted to roll over on to her side, a task she found immensely difficult. “H-hello?” her voice cracked as if she rarely used it, her throat dry and uncomfortable. _Where am I?_ After several attempts, she had rolled over to the side and peered across the pitch-black room toward the only wall she hadn't hit with her hands which she couldn't see at all since the room had no light at all, not even a glow from underneath a door. She didn't remember getting where she was so maybe it was an autopilot Max who had made herself at home in a pitch-black room, a reasonable assumption for her mind to make despite it being beyond her comprehension how she had come to that conclusion since she didn't really remember all that much, the occasional rumble of thunder here, another type of loud bang there, the latter of which almost seemed to sound like a gunshot. Max shrugged weakly, feeling the pull of unconsciousness once again as a faint click and a whir echoed around the room. _Okay, Auto Max, what mess have you gotten me into this time?_

*****

Chloe and her friends arrived at school, a fabulous looking majestic building with an impressive statue set above a fountain. “Here we are again, girls. Blackhell Academy.”  
“Yay...” Victoria grumbled sarcastically, “Anyone up for a smoke?” the pixie blonde then inquired  
“Yea...” Chloe nodded. The blunette rarely smoked and Victoria had noticed, similarly to the others, that it was only around the time of her birthday. Victoria and the others had noticed the photograph of the young blonde who had always been kept close to Chloe's heart in a special locket that never seemed to be removed despite them never learning the blonde's name. “Shit girls, it's been eight years since Rachel died”  
_That's her name??_ Victoria and Taylor looked shocked, they had never heard Chloe mention the name of the girl who saved her life when she was five. Steph attempted to look surprised and must've pulled it off some since neither Victoria nor Taylor grew suspicious. Steph had known the identity of the girl who had died for Chloe for a long while and that the two people who frequently visited the Price household were not, in fact, distant relatives but the parents of the girl who had saved Chloe

Before anyone could speak again a man walked toward them, he had the principal, Raymond Wells, and the head of the science department, Michelle Grant alongside him. “Excuse us. I was wondering if you could tell me which of you is Chloe Price”  
“Uh... That's me” Chloe replied, the man didn't look like a cop at least.  
“My name is Marvin Brent. Professor Marvin Brent. I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time, Miss. Price”  
“Sure...” Chloe nodded and moved away from her friends. _What's this about Prof. Suitman?_ Chloe fought hard to keep her snark in check, opting for a simple monosyllable response instead of risking anything more adventurous

*****

When Max finally came to, she had found herself back in the environment she had been in before she was rudely sedated. Looking out over the large expanse of open fields, she found herself utterly alone. The girl slowly began to get onto her knees to stand but found herself too unstable to stand. “Ugh” she groaned in annoyance, the environment she was in was rather picturesque but to the confused young teen, every shadow hid a man who could jump out and inject her again, so much so that she didn't even attempt to lift the camera that was resting by her hand. “Where...” _The hell am I?_ the girl groaned and coughed, her throat hurt too much and was too dry to even contemplate finishing that sentence. She rubbed the back of her neck where she had been injected, the memory of the drug slowly impairing her caused her to shiver. A majestic wood stood in the distance to her left and to her right was a rocky outcropping that she didn't recognize. The sun beat down upon her, warming her skin and making her squint her eyes. _Well, it's very pretty..._

The stylus of a machine slowly went up and down on a machine, recording a wavy pattern on a piece of paper. “Everything’s okay?” a voice asked, glancing at a one-way mirror.  
“Yea.” A male voice grunted, “I just got back from that recruiting mission of mine”  
“Oh?”  
“They said yes!!”

*****

“I’m going to be getting thirty grand a year between now and my eighteenth!!” a blue-haired enthusiasm had stormed into the living room of her house and proclaimed the revelation of a lifetime to the seven people she cared about the most.  
“Chloe... What?” Joyce Price was flabbergasted, to say the least. “You're thirteen!” _and not as if you need anymore money..._  
“I know!! It's just a retainer fee, cos once I'm eighteen the real work begins” Chloe debated saying that the money would be kept in trust until she had been employed by the agency who were seeking her employment. “Sixty grand at the start”  
Around her, Victoria, Steph, Taylor, William Price, and James and Rose Amber stood in stunned silence. Chloe Price has a job offer at thirteen? “I'm so fucking proud of you Chloe!!” Victoria was the first to speak. “Any idea where you're going to work?”  
“Language” Joyce warned but had an undeniable smile on her face  
“That's a dollar for the swear jar... But I guess you don't need that college fund anymore” The gentle tone of William Price soothed the blunette’s excitement  
“I've gotta keep my grades up at an A- or higher across the board, and I guess I'll start when I'm eighteen. Other than that, I don't know. Spend the swear jar money on that trip to Paris you two always wanted”

Chloe recalled the conversation with the man who had visited her at Blackwell, _Martin something or other, A.K.A Prof. Suitman_ and what he had proposed. AP biology, chemistry, physics, and math would replace her regular classes of those subjects and AP psychology would replace a subject of her choice. She would advance as soon as she was deemed ready to do so, furthermore it was implicit in the arrangement that Chloe would earn at least partway toward a degree in the time she was in high school then she would be employed by that professor man's organization in a presumably science-based field since they wanted her to focus on those AP courses that they'd be topping up Chloe's scholarship and providing a tutor for

“What do you think, mom?” Chloe asked, barely able to contain her excitement and enthusiasm for her future which looked good enough as it was without being assisted by the organization that had for some reason, out of all the teens in America, chosen Chloe to be the recipient of what sounded like an amazing opportunity.  
“I think you should fucking go for it, sweetie!” Joyce exclaimed, a wide smile set upon her face. The blonde did question whether it was right to offer a young teen such an opportunity but if it all worked out and if she worked hard, Chloe would have a career that was stable and that, along with loving friends and family, was everything she had ever wished for her daughter.  
“That’s a dollar for the Paris jar!” the soothing male voice repeated his earlier comment to the happy peals of laughter from the five women and a smirk from the Ambers. “Chloe, call me biased but you always were the best. I say go for it”  
“I agree” Victoria stated, she hadn't wanted to be the first to declare her support in case the Price parents disagreed  
“Me too” Steph smiled widely and hugged Chloe  
_Jeez Steph, you lesbian_. It was no secret to Victoria that Steph had an attraction toward her best friend  
“You'll always have our support” James Amber was the last to speak, Rose and Taylor merely nodded their support  
“Then if you’d excuse me, I have a phone call to make” Chloe left behind a group of people who were truly proud of her.

*****

“Will our new recruit work on _Subbasement Four_?” a man asked another, the latter of whom was swirling his coffee around its cup with a casualness that always astounded the first man. _Almost as if none of this is in any way special, as if it doesn't matter_  
“No.” The coffee-swirler, a gray-haired man replied calmly, coldly even. “She'll start out in data analysis or maybe theory, Research and Development if she's lucky” the man replied before lifting the cup to his mouth to finish his coffee. “Are the plans for subbasement five ready to go?”  
“Just waiting for the finishing touches, as soon as we get to the bottom of... You know” The bald man who was talking to the gray-haired man looked around nervously, they were in the first-floor coffee shop of their workplace but most of the interns didn't know the nature of the data they were analyzing  
“Very good” with that the gray-haired man stood and made his way toward an elevator, keying in an eight-digit code to open it and swiping his ID to activate it. “Subbasement Four”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I finished this chapter ages ago but forgot to finish up and post it!

Max groaned, she had found herself back in that small, cramped room but there were bright spotlights above her that had ignited and were disturbing her sleep. Groaning, she covered her face with her arm, the bright arc lights the sort used in warehouses to light a huge area and therefore in a space as small as the cramped room that was her bedroom, the brightness of the line of several was totally overwhelming. “Turnemoff” she grumbled groggily  
“Wake up!” a voice boomed, startling the poor girl and causing her to jerk herself out of bed and onto the hard, cold concrete floor beneath her.  
“What the fuck?” She had rolled over off of her back and onto her hands and knees so she could attempt to get back into bed. She just wanted to sleep but that would mean ignoring the line of three arc lights positioned above her bed and out of reach behind a solid and rather thick plastic partition  
“Language!” the same booming voice barked, the volume up uncomfortably high. “Get up and have a shower, you have five minutes”  
Max looked around through squinting eyes, trying to see where the door was to the shower. Unable to see a way out at first she was startled when a door slid aside for her out of the foot-thick concrete wall, revealing a small bathroom and closet where several unremarkable sets of clothes were hung out for her. Tracksuit pants and loose-fitting tees awaited her on hangers, plain, dull and gray. “These are a bit too generic, even for me...” she mumbled, pulling off her similarly dull night clothes she hadn't remembered putting on and standing under the shower before starting it. The water came out cold and gradually heated up so it wasn't frigid but it still wasn't anywhere near comfortable.

“Two minutes” the voice spoke again after a few seconds of her being in the shower, Max hadn't noticed that several minutes had passed since the man had yelled  
“Fuck” she scowled and started cleaning at a sedate pace. A few minutes later her body seized up unexpectedly as white-hot agony seemed to course through her whole body at the same time. As a result, she screamed and fell to the floor, something had shocked her unexpectedly. The wristbands she had hardly noticed in her groggy state had a blinking light on them and in her state of convulsive pain, the young brunette clawed at them desperately to try to loosen them but they were made of solid metal, they wouldn't budge even a fraction of an inch, no matter how desperate her clawing became. “Aaaaggghhhhh” Finally a pained cry escaped the young girl, she had to force it past her uncooperative jaw that had clamped shut as a result of both the pain and consequences of the shocks. By some miracle for the girl the pain abated a few seconds after she cried out.  
“Get dressed!” the same voice boomed impatiently  
“But I'm not... Aaaaaagggghhhh” Once again Max felt the crippling agony tear through her limbs as the wristbands gave her a shock and she once again clawed unthinkingly at the devices with clawed hands. “What the hell? Where the fuck am I? W-why do these people keep electrocuting me?!” Max had grumbled those comments out loud instead of in her head like she had intended, a subconscious plea for mercy  
“You have been a badly behaved subject and you will follow my commands from here on out unless you want me to flick this switch to activate the cuffs and leave the room” the guard replied irately  
“N-no” Max mumbled, the voice was somewhat familiar but she couldn't remember where she had heard it before  
“You need to be out of there, right now, girly!” came the unpleasant voice yet again, clearly somehow just holding on to the last vestiges of his patience  
Reluctantly, Max stood up, grabbed an old worn-out towel and started drying herself off, squeaking quietly at the sight of the camera watching her every move but too afraid to do anything more than that. She didn't know where she was, she didn't know what was happening, how she had ended up in the claustrophobic room she had woken up in when her last memory was of being in a beautiful field. “W-where am I?”  
“Silence” came the expected stern reply  
“But... Just tell me where I am? Where's my... I have a mom and dad, they’ll be looking” she didn't really remember much before the white nothingness but all kids had parents, right? She did have vague impressions of blonde hair, of brown hair, of blue, a couple weird smells that soothed her, one of which she remembered had always made her cough  
“I SAID SHUT UP!!” the voice bellowed out once again as her guard, no keeper was quickly becoming exasperated with the resistance his charge had begun to show and he flicked on the wristbands once again eliciting another shriek of agony from the young brunette teen. “You were so malleable, so compliant. Don't make me come down there and teach you another lesson like has happened in the past! Now, get off your fucking ass and get dressed!!” A second later an audible click indicated that the system the guard was using to scream at the occupant had been cut off and while before it had been unbearably noisy while he was screaming, every noise, every syllable making Max cower in blind submissive fear it was suddenly unbearably silent, the only sound her ragged uneven breathing, a slight ringing in her ears and her own frantic heartbeat. Whimpering, the girl fought against the severe panic that permeated her entire body and hurried to do as her keeper had instructed, getting both her plain articles of clothing on after a fashion. _I wanna go home..._ Was her only thought as another door slid open to allow her access to a narrow and still brightly lit corridor that she wasn't familiar with, the door to the bedroom sliding down and back into place behind her.

*****

The guard twisted his mustache around the end of one of his fingers as he watched the security camera closely to make sure there wasn't any evidence that the girl he was holding was using any of her hitherto unseen 'powers', if the blonde girl that had died had been correct regarding the girl. He hadn't been read in on what had happened to the girl’s parents, they could have been at the bottom of the Puget Sound for all he knew but that wasn't his responsibility, his duty was keeping the girl under control and compliant. “What the hell is wrong with her?” he murmured to himself. Ever since he had arrived at the facility and joined the security detail tasked with keeping the young teen under control, the young girl whom he had no idea of the name of had been completely compliant to every instruction with only a few incidents where she attempted to refuse to do what she was instructed to do. Refusal was a severe offense in the facility and was dealt with harshly utilizing the shock cuffs and the occasional beating, things that it seemed the teen suddenly had no memory of

Turning to face the door as it opened, the guard nodded with a stem expression. “Sir!”  
“Is everything okay?” a man with short black hair, a goatee and thin rectangular glasses asked with a frown  
“Yeah, she's just being a little uncooperative today” the mustache man replied  
“You shocked her three times in short succession”  
“She was being difficult” he explained  
“Ugh. Why does she have to make it harder than it has to be?”  
“I do not know, sir” the man with a mustache shrugged and returned his attention to a screen where Max was wandering through a thick tropical jungle. “It's such an annoyance having to completely start over yet again since we detained her but her brainwaves have changed”

*****

Stephanie Gingrich sat in the blonde Chloe Price's bedroom, her head resting on her hands, her elbows planted on the desk in front of her. _Shit_ she thought. She had had another dream, a remnant from a previous timeline. _You were right, all my best friend Chloe's suffering in that timeline was indeed her fault!_ Scowling, she turned her attention back to what she had observed instead of continuing to hate someone who was almost certainly dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear from people about what they think so far!
> 
> Also before I forget, the disciplinary bracelets were inspired by the power dampening bracelets in 'Subject 219: Maxine Caulfield' by StefiDelly, one of my absolute favorite fanfics


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh heh heh

“Your name?”  
“Elizabeth Ross, sir.”  
“Your age?”  
“Twelve, sir.”  
“Your school?”  
“Washington Special Academy: Seattle School, sir”  
“You mean campus, don't you?”  
“Yes sir, I'm sorry, sir. Seattle Campus”  
“Very good, you may go.”

A young teen with brunette hair turned away from the man stood before her and stepped back into her little bedroom in silence, it had always baffled her how they could get her into so many different places in such a short period but she also knew that any kind of resistance, including asking too many questions, was always met with cruel retribution and not every member of staff followed protocol and therefore weren't content with using the electrified bracelets she had woken up to what she reckoned to be several months ago. She had since then been fitted with electrified anklets as well since the amount of time she spent in isolation had been decreased from twenty-four hours a day most days down to twenty-two hours a day most days, eighteen of which she was being put through various trials to attempt to identify exactly what powers she had if any. Admittedly the two hours she was spending with other people she was often heavily restrained if not sedated as they were more often than not prodding and poking at her with various medical devices, taking blood, monitoring her brain patterns or worse yet, she was under the knife while being held captive in her own body. Some kind of paralyzing agent was usually administered to ensure she couldn't move before they cut her open to watch how quickly she healed or to stuff some kind of new-fangled gizmo inside her skull to monitor a new parameter of her brain or nervous system. For awhile they had experimented with an anesthetic administration device that was designed to reduce the amount of agony she felt and they had tested it the next time she went in for surgery. The scientific team were astonished to find it barely lasted ten minutes before she was once again whimpering from the agony and as a result, they found that her metabolism's baseline raced at almost three times the rate of anyone else’s, burning through any sedative or other drug administered save the one thing that seemed to work; the paralyzing agent that had been purposefully selected as it was proven to be incredibly difficult to metabolize at any great speed and would normally paralyze an individual for nearly a day at a standard dose

The brunette found herself in hostile environments most days, stepping through the doorway out of her bedroom was always a intriguing yet terrifying experience for the girl who had no idea how long she had been in the facility since she only really remembered the last few months, or at least she thought it had been a few months but the residual pain she always experienced from the medical staff tearing her skull open always seemed to interfere with everything. _If they would just leave her to heal perhaps she'd be able to give them their answers sooner!!_ The tortured young girl grumbled quietly to herself, the tests they had done to assess her schooling had greatly worried the people in charge though for the life of her she couldn't understand why having an inexplicable college-level understanding of academic subjects was such a problem since she had little understanding of what a special school was or why someone would be sent to one. Her biggest concern for her immediate future was to get through whatever trial they had set up for her that day while hoping they had gotten bored of their 'trial of the week’, they had moved past the simple trials such as attempting to lift a can of coke and were experimenting with more and more unique concepts and while she didn't understand the reasoning behind throwing her out of a moving aircraft, she knew whatever they were trying to do hurt, a lot and their tests had progressed from a few mild burns through to third-degree burns and then on to broken bones and near misses with guns. Every day she wasn't on strictly enforced bed rest for the past few months they had been forcing her to go through the same process; first, they chucked her out of an airplane that wasn’t really flying high enough to kill her but certainly was flying high enough for her to frequently shatter the bones in her legs, then she was expected to get out of the burning structure she would be dropped in and that latter part of her task often required her to drag herself across metal that was hot enough to cause deep burns and finally she was forced to evade a gunman who wouldn't hesitate to put bullets in her. All the while she was being watched closely by a team of scientists and doctors including neuroscientists and about a dozen other specialties who honestly had no idea what they were actually looking for

Whoever had dropped the hint that the girl they had abducted from her family had special powers had been infuriatingly vague about the nature of the girl’s powers but had at least informed them that they may not manifest for awhile. The tests had moved on from the single tasks they had run when she was younger to the more complex and more life-threatening setup to which the latest set of tests belonged to, she had done five of the seven run throughs of the set but thanks to injuries it had taken her far longer to complete them. The premise of each part was simple; the fall from the plane was to determine if she had any ability to fly or otherwise halt her plummet to earth, the burning structure tested to see if she could manipulate any of the basic elements, or in more scientific terms exhibit any signs of pyrokinesis, aerokinesis or aquakinesis while also testing for increased healing from the burns and broken bones and the final part of the test was to see if she experienced anything such as increased speed or precognition to avoid a bullet or three. Initially, there were no signs of anything weird other than her preestablished increased metabolism but by the second run-through her injuries were healing at a much greater pace than before, her badly shattered legs healed in a matter of weeks, then days and finally hours with the burns healing at a similarly increased rate though the process was far from perfect since she still had all the scars from dragging her lower body through burning wreckage, scars that were added to by each subsequent run. The girl’s only glimpse of hope had been that by the end of the seven attempts of the trials they'd have given up on trying to get her to exhibit pyrokinesis or flight and move on to something new that would hopefully be less painful.

That particular day however she went into the plane knowing that if she disobeyed at that point she would be rendered too weak to make it out of the test area at any decent speed, she had a plan and as she stood at the edge of the plane’s loading ramp she gave a quick smile to the man in the hold with her before stepping into nothingness, a sensation that almost made her throw up the first time but she had become used to it after only three runs and that day was special. She compressed herself into a ball then used her momentum to orient herself so she was plummeting headfirst, to her there was no longer a light at the end of the tunnel and it was a decision she had made when the inevitability of her continued suffering for no apparent reason became clear

*****

“What the _fuck_ is she doing!?” A man yelled at the man with a mustache who was overseeing the trial. The man had gotten the heebie-jeebies from the way the girl smiled at the man in the plane with her and had summoned his superior while holding his hand over a red button. “David, talk to me!”  
“I think she’s trying to commit suicide” the guard, David, replied with distracted distaste

All of a sudden the girl was led on the ground, completely unharmed yet somehow unconscious, a dribble of red slowly rolling down her cheek. Before she passed out she had suddenly had a moment of clarity, a long-forgotten memory coming to her,_ I am Maxine Caulfield_  
“What in the name of all that's holy, David you'd better tell me what in the everlasting fuck just happened!!”  
“I think she just... Teleported” David replied, wonder in his tone. Every one of the newly recruited guards had heard stories of what had happened to that poor blonde that had called in about the girl’s supposed powers from the old guard, those that had been there when those things happened, how she had been killed mere hours after calling it in by the father of the person, child really, that they had received the worrying information about and subsequently kidnapped

*****

The young teen had a somewhat omnipresent view over the scene beneath her, she found herself on a somewhat familiar corner of a street in a town she knew well and everything seemed right, more right than in a usual dream where minor things were often off and because of that she recognized what it was, it wasn't anything short of a memory long lost in the turbulent stream of time. Looking around, she saw someone she vaguely recognized from previous half-remembered dreams, albeit younger than she had ever seen them as they were barely five or six years old. She was stood by a payphone and was clearly anxious. “Hello” the strangely not stranger spoke quietly but clearly. “I'm calling about something you might be interested in”  
“Who are you” the voice replied. Strangely, the person who was observing could hear both sides of the conversation. “How old are you, how did you get this phone number, where's your mommy or daddy?”  
“That doesn't matter, not if you want to save the city of Arcadia Bay. There's a person here in town, Maxine Caulfield, who will show weird abilities. I can't say more cos it's not something I know a lot about”  
“What's your name, miss?”  
“I'm sorry, I've really gotta go find my mommy but if you want to save a city called Arcadia Bay you gotta hurry up and find Maxine Caulfield. She scares me”  
“Why?” a few tense moments passed, “hello? Hello? Are you there?” the person at the end of the phone didn't know it but the young child had put the phone down atop the phone book and set off at a stroll.

_Well, I suppose you did the right thing_ the observing tween thought to herself while following the young child around. That was a new development. She had had weird experiences, weird dreams like the one she was experiencing since she was very young, maybe seven years old, but for the longest time, she hadn't been conscient, or self-aware in them. In fact, those dreams had functioned just like any other dream where she was caught up in the narrative but still maintained the unnerving accuracy to real life. A number of times the observer had woken up and scrambled to head out to a place which she had seen in those dreams only to be absolutely freaked by how realistic the dream had been when she had arrived  
_“I kinda thought so too”_ a gentle, melodious voice in her head replied. _“I'm still hanging on in here, just about”_ The observer had only spoken directly to whomever it was once before, years and years ago and had forgotten about doing so until she was forcibly reminded by the voice she hadn’t heard in years  
_I'm glad to hear that, old friend. I’d just like to thank you for everything you've done, everything you've sacrificed for my best friend_  
_“Oh. You...”_ the voice paused as if attempting to control roiling emotions, _“You're welcome”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my, poor Maxi...:(


	6. Chapter 6

Max groaned. The first thing she was aware of was that she was surrounded by beeping machinery that had already progressed far along the slippery slope toward driving her insane and she longed for the absolute silence of her sealed bedroom, a room where the only sound was her breathing. Immediately, the unfortunate girl gripped at the sides of her head, trying to cover her ears and wincing as she did so. She had caught some of her barely healed scars from where the scientists had to cut her head open to stave off an aneurysm as a result of what had happened in the latest test. The world pulsed around her and it seemed to quieten just for a few seconds. _What the hell is happening to me?_ All too soon though the incessant tone that tracked the girl’s heartbeat had returned, being broadcast from the device lodged in her chest, the device was one of many that had been implanted throughout her body. One to track her heartbeat and blood oxygen levels, another to track her blood pressure, a third monitoring the contents of her bloodstream, white blood cell count and insulin levels amongst many others. One to monitor her breathing and how much oxygen she drew in with each breath, another to monitor her metabolism and a whole host of sensors and devices monitoring her brain constantly from within her skull, sending their data back to the mainframe. The mainframe was something that Max hadn't ever seen but something she knew of from overheating the scientists talking when she was supposedly in too much pain to be able to listen. She looked down much to her disappointment, that was supposed to be the end of her suffering, end of her life. Nothing the scientists tried worked yet they hadn't given up. All the tests were rather painful and she had been in there a very long time, enduring test after test.

An unknown amount of time passed before the door opened and one of the lead guards stormed in. “What the hell were you playing at?!” he demanded. She couldn't reply to the veteran who still wore his dog tags proudly, a thing she was initially grateful for until she felt a stinging slap across her cheek, that particular guard liked her to be seen and not heard, not speaking unless spoken to. “Answer the damn question!” he snapped  
Max croaked out one word, 'headache’ but wasn't able to say much more than that and 'water’, to which the guard, Madsen she believed his name to be, growled in aggravation and threw down a ration bag of water. The brunette greedily tore the ration bag open and glugged down the two measly mouthfuls it contained with a despairing groan coming from the young teen. Two mouthfuls weren't really enough in any sense of the word but the Facility was still rather strict about anything the girl might have been able to use to escape even if said something hadn’t responded to her purported powers whilst she was being tested. Until they knew exactly what she could do, Max wasn't given any opportunities.  
“Now, tell me what the hell you were doing!!”  
Max couldn't really understand what the big deal was, she hadn’t really remembered much of what had happened the last time she had been put through that test. “If it wasn’t obvious” she started with snark, “I was trying to escape this place” The guard scowled and triggered the shock bracelets, they had all been ordered not to allow Max any freedom to be disrespectful and it was something that Madsen couldn’t stand anyway. Screaming, Max fell back to her barely tolerable and lumpy bed, the shackles around her wrists and ankles clinking as she jerked uncontrollably. “Aaaaaaarrrggghhhhh” The girl’s strangled cry sounded a lot like a wounded animal.  
“Apologize!”  
“Buuu...” she took a deep breath, trying desperately to get enough oxygen into her convulsing body. “Why...?” she finally exhaled  
“Just fucking apologize you spoiled shit!!” the guard snarled  
“I... I... I'm” she stuttered, attempting to form the words around her clamped jaw, the electricity forcing her muscles to contract, clamping her mouth shut.  
“Fuck this” Madsen stood abruptly, marching out of the room, leaving the remote control for her shock bracelets and anklets on a shelf next to Max's hospital bed but she was shackled to the bed and therefore couldn't reach the controls no matter how hard she tried. “P-p-p-leeeeasee” she called after the guard’s retreating back.  
“You won't ever learn, will you? Since you will not learn that we do not tolerate disrespect, I'm going to leave you now and the doctor will disable the bracelets when they come by, if you're respectful to them”  
Max was left gasping by the continuing agony of the continuous shocks provided by the bracelets, her wrists already showing signs of permanent injury from the repetitive abusive use of electric shocks.

*****

Chloe sat in the classroom set aside for her use and listened to her teacher who was a guest lecturer from a nearby college, or at least that was what he said to the eager blunette. “I really like this advanced shit you guys are teachin' me” she mentioned to the lecturer once the bell had rung for the end of the school day  
“You have me at this time for another few weeks, Ms. Price” the lecturer advised, packing up his educational materials before leaving for the evening  
“Cool...! Never thought I'd be learning about such advanced shit at high school. Tell me, will I be working with genetics at the Institute?”  
“I would imagine so. I don't think they cover stuff that you wouldn't be needing, especially as this is all paid for by the Institute”  
“I'm really gonna be studying genetics? Sweetness. Well anyway, I'll see you next week. I expect my friends are waiting for me by the fountain”  
“See ya, Ms. Price.”  
“Yeah, bye Carl”

The blunette poked her head out of the classroom and, satisfied that nobody was around to catch her, dropped her skateboard and jumped on it, riding it down the entirety of the corridor and through the recently upgraded front doors that had been made automatic with a donation from the Price Foundation, owned by one Chloe Price and managed by her mother, Joyce Price. Chloe slid down the rail on the steps outside the main entrance and rolled to a stop by her friends who were where she suspected they would be, stood around the fountain and waiting for Chloe. “Ladies”  
“Hey there, Chlo” Chloe's best friend and out-and-proud lesbian, Steph Gingrich called, wrapping her arms around the blunette. She and Chloe had been best friends since birth and did everything together. The job that Chloe would be doing when she reached adulthood would be the first time she was apart from Steph in her life  
“Price.” Chloe's fashionista friend Victoria stated with barely a nod. She and Chloe hadn't gotten along initially. Victoria was an insecure person as a result of her parents never thinking what she did was good enough, even at the age she had met Chloe. Chloe had been nothing like Victoria and despite her being rich she had no poise or decorum. Victoria had therefore considered the tomboy to be a rival, cemented by the fact that Chloe had been using her father's old fashioned Polaroid camera while the pixie blonde preferred digital. Chloe had quickly destroyed Victoria’s preconceptions of her by returning the blonde girl’s mockery with kindness  
Victoria's oldest friend, Taylor, had joined the group when Victoria had joined up and was one of Chloe's closest friends and a closet lesbian much like her longtime secret crush, a certain pixie blonde who, despite being pretty mean to most people, seemed to have a soft spot for the other blonde. “Hey, Chloe”

Kate, the newest addition to their little group sat on the edge of the fountain with her head in one of her many sketchpads, drawing the world in the unique style of her ever-present innocence. The Christian girl had been the target of bullies until Victoria and Chloe, the most powerful students in their cliches respectively, had declared that there would be no more bullying of the timid religious girl. Chloe rode with the tough skateboarding kids but also was the honorary head of most academic clubs. Wells had insisted on making Chloe honorary head of those students because she was an 'outstanding student and a true champion of Blackwell's values’ therefore she had a lot of support from not only the skateboarders and stoners but also the more academic kids. Victoria, on the other hand, had the more elitist cliche under her thumb and together they had put a stop to the bullying. She was still pretty quiet around anyone who wasn't in her immediate friendship group, Chloe, Victoria and a boy called Mikey, someone she had known at church before his father stopped attending for some reason. Kate had later discovered the rumors, that Mikey was ostracized from the community because he had become friends with Steph, someone the church declared a sinner. Mikey's older brother, Drew had caught other kids bullying Mikey over Steph and had told his father who had pulled them both out of the church, never to be seen again and Kate didn't find that out until a lot later when she bumped into Mikey in her first week at Blackwell.

“How were classes today, Chloe?”  
“They were pretty good, Katie. Biological chemistry, psychology and genetics today, now that those exit exams are out of the way.”  
“Oh yea, you have the grades back?”  
“4.0” Chloe replied simply. “According to the paperwork, I only dropped a few marks across the entire lot. Physical education just is not my thing”  
“Congrats, Chlo!!” Steph whooped a few times  
“Knew you could do it!” Kate exclaimed happily, her anxiety forgotten for a few short moments  
“I never actually saw you revising, Price...”  
“Didn't you realize, Chase? Our Chloe is very smart” Steph replied with a cheeky smirk  
“No shit, Sherlock.” Victoria deadpanned, “Two Whales to celebrate, my treat?”  
“Fuck yea!!” the group cheered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not in Oregon so the stuff about exit examinations might not be totally accurate


	7. Chapter 7

“P-p-please” _Help me..._ the word was all that could be forced out between clamped jaws, a surprising amount of pleading behind the stuttered word. Every time someone entered the room the same plea would be stuttered out by the exhausted and agonized teen who was the room’s single occupant. The girl was strung out spread eagle on the lumpy mattress set out on the hospital bed, their wrists and ankles restrained by poorly designed rope restraints that had already rubbed her wrists raw from the repeated straining and writhing at the merciless, unending course of electricity coursing through her body from the bracelets and anklets. _Please... Please, let me die..._

Many people came and went as the hours passed, all of them unaffected by the suffering occurring in the room reminiscent of both a hospital room and a jail cell.

*****

“To Chloe, our little genius!!” Chloe's auburn-haired breast friend called out  
“Chloe!!” came a chorus of voices from the three other girls at the table  
Chloe blushed bright red then smiled and chuckled. “I don't know what to say”  
“Chloe Price, speechless at last” Victoria mumbled, earning a middle finger from Chloe, a reproachful glare from Kate and a laugh from the other two  
“Don’t worry about it, Katie” Chloe wrapped her arms around the Christian across the table, “I'll get my own back sooner or later”  
Kate snickered while Victoria gulped, the blunette had become quite a prolific prankster, quite happy to prank any one of her friends. Consequently, the girls had become more cautious since they never knew when they would end up getting pranked again, Chloe had been forced to become more observant as well since Victoria and her best friend Steph liked to keep her on her toes with their own pranks, and flour bombs.

“Now now, you lot” Joyce scolded in a light warning tone, the Two Whales diner had been declared, as William called it, a DMZ, a demilitarized zone where pranks were not allowed. “Don't forget the Prank Accords of 2005”  
“Yea, yea, mom” Chloe sighed and hung her head. “No pranks are to occur or be discussed at the Two Whales”  
Chuckling quietly at the despondent blunette, Joyce quickly made amends by setting down some freshly made omelets and waffles. “Here ya go, girls” she presented the food with a flourish and left with the promise of brownies 'if they ate all their food'. Joyce loved those girls and was always willing to engage in playful banter with them and was always reminding them they would always be her children. In a way, at least two of them had already become like foster kids to the owner of the Two Whales. Both Victoria and Steph went through some bad times with their parents and had since come to think of Joyce as their foster mom and Kate knew she could talk to Joyce and William about anything, something she knew she couldn't do with her own parents. The pixie blonde’s parents lived in Seattle but they allowed Victoria to live somewhere where she would be happier; in Arcadia Bay with her friends and while Steph's family lived in the Bay, they were almost always out of town on some adventure or another, adventures that Steph wasn't ever welcome on. Kate’s family were demanding but so long as Kate did what was expected of her, they didn't mind her spending time with her friends

“I dunno how many times I have said this Chloe, but your mom's the best!!” Victoria sighed, slumping into her seat with a groan of appreciation once all the girls' plates were completely cleaned of every scrap of the delicious food.  
“She is such a wonderful person” Kate replied, “no idea how she raised such a slob though” a gentle smile became a barely restrained grin  
“Hey!!” Chloe turned to glare playfully at the blonde who smirked back at her. “You're gonna pay for that one, Katie” Chloe growled and before Kate even knew what was happening, she had leaped over the table and was sat squished between Victoria and Kate, turning to face Kate and sticking her long, artistic fingers into Kate's unprotected sides  
“Eeeeeee” Kate squealed and tried to clamp her arms down against her sides to stop the relentless tickling but it was already too late, Chloe had her and all the girls knew it

After a few moments of waiting, of biding her time, Victoria scooted back a bit on the bench she was sharing with Kate and suddenly Chloe. Had Chloe not been so intent on punishing Kate for what she said, she would've noticed and prepared herself. Five. Four. Three. Two. One...  
“Agh!!” Chloe's arms tightened against her sides, trapping Victoria's hands under her arms while the blunette continued the relentless tickling of the Christian blonde. Victoria had forgotten that Chloe was stronger than Kate and her hands, once pinned, couldn't move much to the amusement of the blunette and the only two girls not yet involved. Had Kate not been fighting off breathlessness from the relentless tickling, she too would've had a chuckle at the unfortunate pixie blonde’s predicament  
“Chloe!!” Victoria exclaimed  
“Yes, Vee?” Chloe replied innocently  
“Let me go!!!” she grumbled  
“Let me think about that for a sec,” Chloe asked, unaware that Steph had stood and had come over to join them. The auburn-haired girl slowly reached around Victoria who suppressed a snicker, “no” Chloe was grinning and was thoroughly enjoying beating her friends  
Steph placed her hands on Chloe's shoulders and the blunette tensed. “Chlo...” she whispered  
“Oh, shit”  
“Language, Chloe!!” but the exclamation from Joyce was all but ignored  
“Yup” was all Steph replied before moving her own hands to Chloe's neck and starting her own tickle attack on the blunette's exposed neck  
“Ah hahahaha, get off!! Haha” Chloe immediately became incoherent at the tickling, she lifted her shoulders to try to protect her neck but didn’t manage all too well, Steph’s hands tormenting the blunette much to the amusement of Taylor who had slipped under the table at the first sign of trouble and had been sat beside Steph where Chloe had been.

A short distance away, a blonde woman stood with another blonde woman and a couple with dark hair. They were all sharing a solemn drink and a smile, at least until they heard the different squeals, desperate cries and laughter from the gaggle of girls. “Those girls...” Joyce sighed much to the amusement of the other three smirking adults. The girls’ lightheartedness was a relief to them all  
“Should we... Intervene? Before they create a scene?” the only man in the group asked  
“Nah, too late” the other blonde replied with a smile  
“What did I miss?” a second male voice asked having only just arrived through the back door of the diner, turning to face the girls who were all laughing and having fun. “Oh”  
“Well... At least it's not a food fight” the first woman chuckled. “To Chloe. A wonderful daughter and our genius”  
“Chloe!” the other adults rose their glasses as one.  
“Thank you for being here, all of you” the second man smiled. “Rose, James, Sera, it means the world to our daughter”  
“Hey, Bill. You know how we feel, she's our daughter too” one of the two women replied. “They're all our daughters”

A mysterious figure watched over the scene in silence with a joyous smile. At last, Chloe Price was happy.

*****

The brunette had fallen into a somewhat semi-conscious state after being subject to hour after hour of shocks and was therefore unresponsive at first when the shock bracelets were finally disabled. “Wake up...” a surprisingly gentle voice spoke to her. “I'm sorry for what they've done to you”  
“Hhhhhnnnng” was the brunette’s only intelligible response to the voice, her eyes fluttering open slightly no matter how much the newcomer shook her  
“Damnit, I gotta get you outta here, come on” the brunette felt a pair of arms picking her up and she looked through her lashes to see a blurry feminine shape lift her into their arms.  
“W... Who?” she croaked, her jaw still aching from being clamped shut for hours on end  
“My name is Francesca Ward and I'm a journalist. I'm here to rescue you” the stranger replied. She started walking in a hurry toward some unknown destination, the brunette in her arms slipping into and out of unconsciousness

An indeterminate time passed before the woman, Francesca stopped and swore quietly under her breath, the girl in her arms still slipping into and out of consciousness. Unfortunately for her, she was conscious at the moment there was a loud bang in close proximity and the sudden feeling of falling, a loud thud, pain, another loud thud, the smell of iron, then nothing.


	8. Chapter 8

“Oh my god, mom!!” one of the students in Chloe's class had been pulled to one side during lunch period but the consequential scream and agonized sobbing could be heard throughout the campus grounds

One of Chloe's posse, Taylor, immediately stepped forward and moved toward the distressed girl. “Dana, Dana, talk to me. What's happened”  
“My... My mom... She was killed in a car smash, her car caught fire and exploded...” the girl, Dana Ward sobbed uncontrollably  
“Oh Dana, I'm so sorry!!” Taylor waved at her friends to get their attention then waved them over to where she was stood next to the distraught redheaded thespian. Her friends hurried to her side and Victoria raised a brow in question as she approached. “Dana's mom was involved in a car smash” she whispered. She shook her head minutely to state that she hadn’t made it  
“Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss, Dana...” Chloe wrapped the other girl in a huge, loving hug

*****

“How did you know her?!” the familiar black-haired veteran barked, resulting in the girl flinching back away from him, or at least as much as she could while chained to a gurney in the medbay. That was where she had woken up next to a body covered with a white sheet, the smell of iron still in the air and the sticky residue of something red on her skin  
“I-I didn't. I’ve never seen that woman before today. I-I swear” the girl replied in a shaky yet earnest tone  
“I don't believe you!” the guard snapped angrily. “You can't lie to me, Missy!”  
“I mean it.” The girl whimpered, “I've never seen that woman before today. She's not one of the regulars that I see”  
“No, I imagine you're correct.” He conceded, “Candice Waters doesn't even work in the Applied Sciences Division, so we have no idea just how she managed to get an access pass to our Applied Sciences laboratories. Did she tell you anything else we could use to identify those who she's working with?”  
“No, sir!” she chanted

After a few minutes, the man stood up, leaving the young brunette tied to her gurney. “If you don't give us honest answers, Subject, I’m afraid we’ll have to get creative with your punishments once again.”  
“Please, no more shocks” she pleaded  
“Tell us what you know” a second voice demanded over a PA system, and therefore was much louder, startling the girl worse than the physically imposing and aggressive attitude of the guard she was stuck in the room with  
“I don't know anything, I swear!!” the brunette exclaimed in a panic. She had learned first hand what happened when those in charge thought she wasn't telling the truth and therefore she whimpered fearfully.

The electricity tore through her young body once again. No matter how hard she tried, Francesca Ward could not get the bracelet and anklets off of the child before fleeing and they mercilessly shocked the child with the torture devices that hadn’t even been scratched in the escape attempt. “If you truly don't know anything then I'm sorry for this but you have lied to us in the past, Subject. I know you were raised here since you were a little girl, and that your parents didn't want a freak like you, but there are certain rules that you have to follow, else we are forced to shock you. It'll always be your fault when we use the shock bracelets on you, Subject”  
“I-I'm sorry” the girl whimpered miserably  
“Tell me what she told you” the guard repeated himself with finality, if he had to ask again there would be dire consequences  
“H-Her name is F-Francesca Ward. S-she is a journalist.” The girl finally admitted  
“Thank you, subject. I need you to contact me if you remember anything else” the guard replied, walking away and leaving the child mostly unharmed  
“Yes, Sir”

“So?” an older gentleman had been waiting outside the medical wing for the black-haired veteran’s report  
“The woman’s real name is Francesca Ward. She's a journalist and her daughter goes to Blackwell Academy.” The guard explained “She’s freelance and her daughter writes in the Blackwell Totem, a college paper”  
“Is the daughter a threat?” the older man asked, it would be no trouble to arrange an 'accident' for a student, even less trouble than for someone like her mother  
“No. The usual cleanup has been carried out, by now the police will have identified her in what remains of her vehicle. She must've had help getting in though. We need to find that security breach and plug it.” The guard warned  
“The Caulfields?” he inquired. It would be a reasonable assumption  
“No. They are as good as neutralized”

Ryan and Vanessa Caulfield had been dealt with years before. They both believed that their daughter had passed away after having been kidnapped by someone. In the end they had been unable to pursue their daughter's kidnappers as they had been under suspicion of manslaughter, they had been the ones Rachel Amber had stepped out in front of to ‘save’ Chloe Price. Chloe hadn't actually been in danger of being run over but the blonde had to find a reason to intervene and allow herself to get hit. The manslaughter charge was quickly upgraded to murder after it came to light that Rachel was the one that had called in the Caulfields' daughter’s weirdness. The Institute offered evidence in the closed trial to show that the Caulfields were fleeing the institution that had an interest in their daughter due to the neglectful environment the parents had provided, and that they had sought revenge against Rachel at the time. The evidence was obviously manufactured, but because it was a closed trial where not even the accused were allowed to attend due to the risk they pose to their daughter and that the Institute was considered to be above reproach, nobody could dispute the evidence against the Caulfield parents. By the time their names were cleared of any of the charges, their daughter was long gone, 'safely’ hidden away in the Institute’s main campus where she would undergo years of unsanctioned, and largely unsuccessful tests.

“Good work, David. I hear you were the one to put a bullet in the journalist's head?” he asked with a questioning lilt  
“Yes, Sir. She was trying to take the Subject. I had to react” He had to do far more than just putting a bullet in the head of a journalist of course, he had to stage the entire car smash that was purported to have killed the woman that had infiltrated the Institute's headquarters. It had involved smashing the car into a tree then making sure it started to burn, it had involved covering up the consequences of the gunshot wound in a believable yet incredibly unpleasant way.  
“Good job, David. You've done another great service to your country again today by protecting our vulnerable subject” Unbeknownst to David, it was not a governmental project, it was run by a private company but David Madsen did not need to know that, in fact it would probably turn him against the Institute if he was to learn of that fact  
“Thank you, sir” David nodded subtly at the other man. “Have you and the science teams worked out what kind of powers the Subject showed when she almost killed herself?”  
“Not exactly. We believe it's some kind of failsafe. Something like an instinct to prevent death, some kind of teleportation. Definitely active whatever it is, no way is that some kind of passive power”  
“No, I guess not.” Active and passive powers were an early theory of the girl’s purported abilities. Passive ones were ones that were always on, such as telepathy, and active ones were ones that she had to activate by conscious thoughts, such as telekinesis. Her teleportation was clearly an active ability, they didn't have much evidence to base their theory on which was why they didn't have any idea how to trigger her abilities. “What I don't understand is how teleportation could be such a dangerous ability. I'm no scientist but I don't see how it's extreme enough to endanger the whole of Arcadia Bay”  
“You're right. The girl shows nothing that can endanger a whole city” the man muttered. “Maybe she can't endanger the entire city, or maybe we won't ever work it out, but we can test her further with death-inducing situations”  
“Very well, sir. We’ll abandon any other future tests and focus on life and death situations”

*****

Deep beneath the building, the Institute was working on finishing up a facility that would be able to hold someone with abilities, they had done all they could to make it impossible to escape no matter what. The facility was at least a hundred meters beneath the lowest basement floor of the Institute, five levels down. It had been called Subbasement Five and would only be accessible to the highest echelons of the Institute. The incident with the journalist had only made it clear that their Subject would be a high-value target for people who didn't understand the situation and as a result they had rushed through completion of the self-contained facility designed to hold Maxine Caulfield no matter what

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What d'ya think of this story so far? How am I doing?


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